Floor care apparatus are used extensively for cleaning, scrubbing, burnishing, sanding, etc. floors comprised of tile, stone, brick, wood, concrete, carpet, etc. Floor care apparatus are generally comprised of a steerable chassis supported by a plurality of wheels. The chassis accommodates a cleaning assembly, such as a scrubber, a sweeper, a sander, a squeegee, a burnisher, etc. The chassis may also accommodate water tanks, cleaning solution tanks, and spent cleaning fluid that are suctioned from the surface being treated. Further, for dry cleaning or finish removal operations, the floor care apparatus may possess a vacuum system and a receptacle or bag for holding collected dust and debris. The majority of the components associated with the floor care apparatus are surrounded by a housing that protects the internal components and prevents individuals who are working around the apparatus from touching the often hot internal components thereof. As floor care apparatus are sometimes used in tight spaces, such as bathrooms and hallways, it is often desirable to make them as compact as possible.
Floors are often covered with a coating or “finish” material that resists wear. To maintain a desired appearance and level of protection, however, floors must be refinished from time-to-time. Initially, a chemical stripper is deposited onto the existing finish. The “loose” finish is then removed by a floor care apparatus that employs sanding pads that separate the finish and stripper from the floor. The floor must then be thoroughly cleaned and allowed to dry before receiving a fresh coat of finish. As one skilled in the art will appreciate, refinishing is a time consuming and a labor intensive process. In addition, the caustic nature of chemicals used and associated odor renders the working environment dangerous and unpleasant.
As briefly mentioned above, some refinishing processes are dry wherein stripping chemicals are omitted and disk-shaped brushes are employed to remove existing finish. Before a new coat of finish can be applied, however, the floor needs to be brought to an even, smooth, and scratch-free state, which is difficult to achieve with traditional disk scrubbers that are primarily designed to remove finish. Further, the apparatus and associated scrubbers used to clean floors do not function very well for finish removal, which is commonly performed using disk-shaped sanding pad. More specifically, some prior art machines employ disk-shaped scrubbers with attached sanding pads, which leave behind swirl marks and hard-to-reach areas, such as corners, untreated because of the shape of the sanding pads. Other apparatus allow the cylindrical scrubbing pads to be replaced by flat pads that move laterally for sanding and finish removal. Such pads work well initially but are prone to “clogging” by debris created by the sanding operation. As one of skill in the art will appreciate, clogged pad have less sanding surface area for contact with the floor.
Thus it has been along felt need to provide an apparatus that can be used to scrub and sand a floor that possesses long-lasting pads that efficiently remove floor finish without clogging.